Union workers at Chile's Altonorte copper smelter plan to strike and block roads on Monday after scrapping a final wage offer from owner global miner Xstrata, the union and company said on Sunday. The 274 union workers, which represent about 90 percent of the labour force in charge of production, plan to down tool early on Monday at the metallurgical complex that produced 232,000 tonnes of copper anodes last year.
The complex processes copper from third parties. It is not yet clear the impact of the strike on the smelter output, but workers say the strike will halt operations. "They will not be able to produce without us,"said Abdiel Sepulveda, head of Altonorte's union No 1. Sepulveda said Xstrata lowered the original wage and benefits offer during the 5-day government mediation that started last week. He said workers also plan to block access roads to the complex early on Monday to pressure the company. Xstrata's Altonorte said in a statement it would continue to seek an accord with the workers.
A strike at the metallurgical complex could delay copper anodes shipments from top producer Chile and force mining companies to seek other smelters to treat its copper concentrate, which could increase their costs. Impact on the market is seen as minimal. Xstrata, which shut down its Kidd copper and zinc metallurgical plant in Canada on global overcapacity in copper smelting and low treatment and refining charges, took a charge of $170 million for Altonorte.